Edit Locked

"So," Chekov clapped his hands in eagerness, "who's the problem?" When Riker pointed down at the deck, he blinked and said, "Oh, there he is." He knelt down and rolled the still-senseless Bester over, checking him for weapons. "Rather a handsome devil, isn't he?""We hadn't noticed," Worf growled.

Let's say you're a fanfic writer. Let's make another assumption and say that you like a particular actor and everything they've ever been in, because they were in it.

It's entirely possible that you may write a Doppelgänger Crossover, a story in which two characters played/voiced by the same actor meet each other. Or that they are each other. In other words, a crossover which is only happening because the two sources share an actor.

Examples:

Rare canon example. In 'Diagnosis Murder', Dr Bentley has a Contest Winner Cameo on Young and the Restless, and there are frequent references to Bentleys resemblance to Victoria Rowell. (who was on both shows)

Played straight in iFight Crime With Victorious when two of Miranda Cosgrove's characters, Carly Shay and Megan Parker meet thanks to Megan's precognitive power. This serves as a plot point since Megan thinks that she is seeing herself in her visions of the future, but the person in them is actually Carly. When they meet, Megan comments on how much their personalities contrast despite their similar appearance.

Actually inverted in the Hogan's Heroes story Return of the Informer: the author takes one recurring actor playing seven different characters, and has these characters being one and only hapless guy (the aforementioned informer, now defected to the Allies and turned spy against his will). It's frequently hilarious (especially the "Oh no - him again!?" reactions of the main cast) and often quite touching.

Lets just say that the relationships between Spike and Captain John Hart really run the gamut from being the same person to being enemies, friends, lovers or basically anything else you can imagine.

When Ranma ½ crosses over with Ah! My Goddess, it is inevitable that Belldandy and Kasumi (both sweet, innocent, domestic characters voiced by Kikuko Inoue) sit down to trade recipes, or better yet, collaborate on a meal.

Subverted in Chris Davies' Mega CrossoverTogether Again 1996 Chapter, where it's revealed that Kasumi is a reincarnated inhabitant of the Silver Millennium with some very strong, very negative opinions about "the monsters who call themselves gods" (to use her words from the story), and who is outright hostile to Belldandy. However, they seem to get along much better in another story in that series, Together Again 2937 Chapter.

There was also at least one Ranma fanfic crossing over with Magic Knight Rayearth, on the basis that Hikaru Shidou looks like Girl-type Ranma.

The some-odd Ranma/InuYasha crossovers where Ranma invariably turns out to be Inuyasha's reincarnation. They're up in the article itself for a reason. In addition, the two actually encountered each other semi-officially in an animated promotion for It's A Rumic Worldnote (A compilation of short works by Rumiko Takahashi; the short used the main characters of her three most famous series: InuYasha, Ranma ½, and Urusei Yatsura.), which once provided the page illustration. Inuyasha even lampshades this trope by demanding to know why Ranma has his voice.

Stargate SG-1 and MacGyver. There are too many of these fics, far too many JackGuyvers. There are way too many Starscape fics. Also (but not so often) called Fargate.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Firefly crossovers have at least three special variations unique to them, one where Xander initially panics upon meeting Mal Reynolds because of the latter's resemblance to Caleb, and one where cast members from Angel mistake Zoe for Jasmine or Jayne for Hamilton.

Philip Akin appeared as a regular in the first season of War of the Worlds, Adrian Paul in the second. Since both actors also appeared in Highlander: The Series, crossovers make up a sizable proportion of War of the Worlds fanfic, either with Kincaid as a cover identity for Macleod or one being mistaken for the other.

Andromeda all but canonized the notion that Dylan Hunt is the reincarnation of Hercules.

Masi Oka portrayed lab-guy Franklin on Scrubs and now portrays Hiro Nakamura on Heroes, a fact picked up on in one or two fanworks.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars share enough actors to make an arsenal of this, albeit most of them in minor roles in the latter. And that's without getting to the fact that Veronica dated Iceman's identical twin and Mac dated The Flash. It's superhero central, guys.

Done in reverse, with the official X-Men/Star Trek: The Next Generation crossover which featured Captain Picard meeting Professor Xavier, but came out before the first X-Men movie. Made even funnier by a character remarking that both share a likeness.

One can only speculate at just what the hell happened to Badger once the crew left him to make him straighten up, learn the law and start ste— no, wait, that one's already covered. Still, going from kinda-Cockney crime boss to President of the Colonies, pretty impressive feat.

The Harry Potter and Twilight series both feature actor Robert Pattinson in their respective film adaptations, although it would take some rather violent Hand Waving to make Cedric Diggory and Edward Cullen the same person. This has mostly been fodder for the MuggleNet Caption Contest. Cedric seems to have become a much more popular character in Harry Potter fanfiction since the first Twilight movie.

The first "Echo is Faith" fics started showing up less than 24 hours after Dollhouse was announced — i.e., more than a year before the first episode aired. Amy Acker getting cast didn't help.

Aside from Xanatos and Riker, Gargoyles and Star Trek: The Next Generation shared Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Le Var Burton, and Colm Meaney. Cameos from other Star Trek series included Kate Mulgrew as fairy queen Titania (often disguised as a human scientist) and Nichelle Nichols as the female lead's mother. Crossovers milked this for all it was worth.

There are a few Supernatural and Dark Angel crossover fics. Their ubiquity isn't surprising, as Jensen's characters in Dark Angel, the twins Ben and Alec, were genetically engineered, and thus could conceivably be clones of Dean. In light of that, and the Twin Threesome Fantasy trope, it was probably inevitable. However, Dark Angel is set 20 Minutes into the Future. So, if Dean isn't going to be in his forties, time travel or alteration to canon is necessary. Or heck, they could be parallel universes. One form of fic which is surprisingly common despite messing heavily with the timeline is the story in which Alec left Seattle after "Freak Nation" and became Dean.

There is also a not insignificant number of crossovers between Dark Angel and NCIS (because of shared actor Michael Weatherly) where Tony DiNozzo becomes Logan Cale or vice versa. Science magic is usually invoked to explain the timeline and/or the character aging in reverse.

One short fanfic had NCIS's medical examiner Dr. Donald Mallard, better known as Ducky, mistake Rizzoli & Isles' medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles for his friend Kate (he was involved in a small accident). It can be assumed to be Kate Todd from the first two seasons because Kate just happens to be played by the same actress who plays one of the title characters from Rizzoli & Isles. Any guesses? Not the only thing involving Ducky Mallard, played by David McCallum, there are fics out there of him either being related to or being Illya Kuryakin from The Man From Uncle, McCallum's breakout role. Which is kinda weird since an Actor Allusion line early in the seris made reference to Ducky's resemblance to Illya.

Speaking of Valve, they also played it straight in the canon works: they originally had an idea for a scientist called Greg to be playing off Cave Johnson in Portal 2, but decided it was idiotic to hire a voice actor for just a few lines. Instead, they decided to use GLaDOS's voice actor for what we now know as Caroline, and the fact that Caroline was eventually made into GLaDOS is history.

There now exists an entire genre of Star Trek fiction where Bones is actually John "Reaper" Grimm, or at the very least, his something-great grandson.

It can be rather difficult to watch My Life In Film and not see Jones as Sherlock's Jim Moriarty. Especially when he starts talking about burying people in back gardens.

In the Operations Manual for West End Games' Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game, published in 1986, contains an adventure titled "The Couch Potato," in which (assuming the players are using the characters from the movie) Dr. Peter Venkman meets a character named Dr. Hunter Panama. The manual notes right away that Doctor Panama is based on Dr. Hunter Thompson and suggests watching the movie Where The Buffalo Roam, in which he is played by Bill Murray (who, in case you can't guess, also played Dr. Venkman), to give you ideas on how to play the character. The manual also remarks that two Bill Murray characters playing off each other appeals to their schizophrenia.

Norman Reedus' two most famous characters are Murphy MacManus in The Boondock Saints and Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead. As of this writing, there are 44 Walking Dead/Boondock Saintscrossover fics on Fanfiction Dot Net, making it the most common crossover for either fandom.note There are also 30 Supernatural/Walking Dead crossovers and 23 Supernatural/Boondock Saints crossovers, but then again, Supernatural crossovers are popular with just about every "genre" film or series.Coincidence?

Has grown incredibly popular recently in the Sherlock fandom, with actors Martin Freeman being in The Hobbit and Benedict Cumberbatch acting in the newest Star Trek film.

There are a ton of Sherlock crossovers with Cabin Pressure, also starring Cumberbatch; his character Martin Crieff is often revealed to be a third Holmes brother.

And now Cumberbatch has also voiced Smaug in the second Hobbit film. Now there's a proposal for an imagination exercise.

This is even played with in the official IDW comic. Specifically, in the second issue of the Friends Forever series, Discord creates a series of artificial reality scenarios to help the CMC get their cutie marks. One such scenario involves all of them as the command crew on the bridge of a starship greatly resembling the Enterprise, their costumes lifted directly from the cast of TNG. Discord (wearing the outfit Q wore in his debut) even comments that "this one seems familiar."

"Astra Major" is a short story written by FlirtyFroggy, an avid Bamber Bunnny. The fic features Archie Kennedy from Hornblower and "Apollo" Lee Adama from Battlestar Galactica (2003), both played by Jamie Bamber. His fans told him at one convention that they liked to live in a world where Archie didn't die and asked him about his theory on how Archie had survived. Mr Bamber replied: "When they carried his corpse away, aliens came down and resuscitated him, and now he's living on Astra Major in some other galaxy. And maybe Lee Adama will come across him, and asks: 'What the hell is going on with you, Arch?'" This answer inspired the author to write her story.

There are quite a few fan fics featuring Midshipman (Lieutenant) Archie Kennedy from Horatio Hornblower and Lord Tony Dewhurst from The Scarlet Pimpernel, both portrayed by then-25-year-old Jamie Bamber. It seems to be a particularly good fit because both series (first episodes) are set in 1793. Several stories make those two Cuties cousins and their identical looks are explained as uncanny family resemblance. Word of God has it that Archie is the third son of a Scottish Lord, so it all fits together. The stories tend to be Fix Fic because the pattern of Chronically Killed Actor started to appear. Here is a list of cousin stories from Archieology 101. note For instance, see "Castle Out Of Check" by Jan Lindner (Gen Fic, Fix Fic). "Doppelgänger" by Janis Cortese (Slash Fic, explicit, bitter-sweet) subverts the expectations because in this story, Horatio meets Tony when Archie is lost and presumed dead, and he's shattered by the resemblance.

Another, similar fic that crosses over with Highlander has Matt Devlin of Law & Order: UK inexplicably recovering from the fatal bullet wounds he received at the end of the episode "Deal" and being forced to admit to best friend/partner Ronnie and crush Alesha Phillips that he's immortal, thus revealing that he IS Archie Kennedy.

It's not uncommon for fans of EUReKA and Warehouse 13 to say that Carl Carlson and Artie Nielsen are the same person. It helps that both shows are canonically in the same Shared Universe.

For Community fics that fancy bringing the angst and Hurt/Comfort on, one option is to imagine that Britta, played by Gillian Jacobs, is the same character that Jacobs plays in the movie Gardens of the Night, a dark drama about a young woman who is kidnapped as a child and forced into prostitution. It helps that Britta is implied at times to have had a rough childhood with possible molestation involved, albeit usually played for Black Comedy instead of drama.

In "Rebel Quartet", a Blake's 7 story, Orac meddles with the teleport and fetches back not one Blake, but four (all played by Gareth Thomas). There's Blake, the Rev. Griffiths (How Green Was My Valley), resistance leader Owen Edwards (The Knights of God), and magician Blaze (Merlin: the Quest Begins), who promptly sets Orac on fire. All four are rebels against oppression, none of them can agree on anything, and Avon, who hasn't been bothered in weeks, has never been so content in all his life.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy